Hi all,
I was a bit shocked today as I read through the front page posts on BMG only to stumble across an ad for Concealed Carry information alongside a post about the tragedy in Charleston. I clicked through the AdChoices link only to see that I’ve opted out of Google’s interest based ads system, so I’m not sure where this is coming from. I know BMG is primarily ad-supported, but what control does BMG have to filter the topics of ads that show up on the site?
Please share widely!
…as long as BMG uses Googleads, which are not based on your interest, but rather site content. However, the ads cannot control for context, so Google sees that guns are being discussed and thus provides an ad for guns, not discerning that in this case guns are being discussed negatively.
Google, as Christopher correctly observes, is just serving ads algorithmically based on the content on the page and any cookies it may have placed in your browser to track your interests. The best course of action, if the ads bother you, is to install ad blocking technology in your browser. Unfortunately, there isn’t any way to censor, or filter out, particular types of ads served through Google.
Log into AdSense.
Click Allow & Block Ads.
Click the General Categories tab.
In the Search box type the word “gun”
Wouldn’t this also block ads for gun control? (Not a snark.)
This is the full category:
All categories > Business & Industrial > Security Equipment & Services > Guns & Firearms
And let the advertising revenue just continue to flow to BMG.
For some of us, ads for guns are more obscene than ads promoting pornography. The web is full of ads for porno, yet somehow those don’t find their way to BMG pages.
Since there seems to be an easy and straightforward way to block these offensive ads, I suggest the editors do so.
Perhaps the editors might quantify what portion of BMG ad revenue comes from these ads (I am under the impression that AdSense provides analytic tools that allow this). I will happily make a special contribution to compensate BMG for any lost revenue.
Some things are more important than advertising revenues.
I see nothing wrong with your ideas, your input to the editors.
As far as I’m concerned the editors can refuse revenue from whatever sources they please, it’s their website. From a user/reader’s perspective, if there were advertisements for pornography I would ignore those too. As far as obscene, I don’t know… I guess it’s in the eye of the beholder.
…since the subject does occasionally come up here. I’ve long said BMG should just sell ad space to like-minded campaigns and causes rather than rely on Google.
that the editors should accept less ad revenue to support the site.
To my mind, all that is happening is that these ads are being served on an actively hostile market. The ones who should be annoyed at that should be the once producing the ads, not the readers here.
From the context of the readers here, the site takes their money, and in return, the producers of the ads get absolutely nothing whatsoever. How is that a bad deal?